


Hearth

by meanderingsoul



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Caretaker Dean, Castiel is Not a Human, Comfortable Bedding, Cooking, Domestic Fluff, Food, Gen, Gentleness, M/M, Men of Letters Bunker, Team Free Will
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-26
Updated: 2015-09-26
Packaged: 2018-04-23 10:32:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,381
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4873453
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/meanderingsoul/pseuds/meanderingsoul
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sam had totally forgotten that Dean could cook.</p><p>After eating that first Dean-cooked burger he wasn’t sure how he could have ever not known that for any second of his existence.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Hearth

**Author's Note:**

> This starts in some ambiguous part of season eight and goes along much, much more peacefully than the show from that point. Enjoy.

 

Sam had totally forgotten that Dean could cook.

After eating that first Dean-cooked burger he wasn’t sure how he could have ever not known that for any second of his existence ever. The bun was toasted with butter, the patty was obviously pan fried (it wasn’t like the bunker was a real house with a back patio to put a grill out on) but it was juicy and had stuff like spices in it and when the hell had Dean even learned about spices. But there were BBQ flavors and mayo, lettuce and tomato that was actually fresh.

Sam ate all of it, shoved the tomato back in when it dropped out, quickly licked the juice off the plate when Dean turned his head away for a moment. It was the best meal he’d had in years.

Most of what Sam remembered from eating meals as a kid was take out fast food and cereal, with the occasional sit down meal when Dad was in a good mood and they had the money. Bobby had used to make them corndogs from scratch and these little chunks of cooked carrot when they’d stayed with him. Sam had never actually learned how to do anything besides microwave ramen and rip up salad lettuce. Jess had had a few things she liked to make in the apartment they’d only had together for barely a year, but they’d been undergrads and mostly broke and mostly lived off campus food and shitty take out.

There’d been mac and cheese and stuff like it, meals from cans, a lot in all those motel rooms when he was a kid, but Sam was starting to think he’d forgotten how much Dean had been the one who cooked it.

He really hoped it wouldn’t be the last time Dean cooked. Dean seemed really into the whole bunker idea, and after Cas hadn’t come back from purgatory it was really good to see him into something that wasn’t drinking himself to death.

It wasn’t the last time Dean cooked.

There was grilled cheese for lunch one time with sharp cheddar, not the usual off brand American slices. The butter got grease all over his fingertips and he gave up after the third napkin and went to wash his hands before going back in the library. Dean had picked out a bedroom and somehow thought to get hangers somewhere on one of his grocery runs out to Ladow’s and had hung up all his clothes in the closet. Sam was still dragging stuff out of his duffle in the mornings like they were in a motel, but he was starting to wonder if it wouldn’t be better for them to actually settle here for a bit.

Ok, so it wasn’t the kind of real home he’d pictured at all, but it was a cool place and it was safe and Dean seemed happy for once even though Sam still heard him call for Cas in his sleep sometimes. Dean made some sort of chicken and carrot amazing baked thing the next night and only had two beers with it.

Sam came into town with him the next time and got a set of nice, dark purple sheets with some of his pool money and hid them from Dean in the backseat. He could get used to this.

Then there were fried eggs with tomato slices and bacon one morning. Then pan fried pepper steak. Then roasted sweet potato wedges and rosemary smashed potatoes. Then some kind of turkey and barley stew that Sam had accidentally eaten three bowls of and caught Dean beaming about it in a mirror when he thought Sam couldn’t see him.

Sam could _so_ get used to this.

*

Castiel was getting used to this.

This new half stable state in their damaged Grace was different from being fallen or from being angelic, but it seemed likely to be a state that would continue for some time. Cas was flightless for now and tired sometimes. Eating had become a necessity much faster than the last time they’d been low on heavenly power. Sleep was infrequent and somewhat terrifying, he closed his eyes and the universe vanished from his sight. Washing was almost a pleasant habit to have to have and they didn’t mind it. It wasn’t as though their other forms had never touched warm water. Cas had eaten while fallen before, and the sensations of it had been overwhelming and strange, but it hadn’t been like this.

Dean cooked now. Castiel had had few real expectations about joining the Winchesters in using the bunker for a base of operations, but it wasn’t something they recalled seeing him do before. Samuel seemed to greet each new meal Dean had made with an expectant glee Castiel had never seen from him previously. It was an innocent sort of joy and Cas enjoyed seeing it, if only on his face. Sam’s soul had so often seethed, but they imagined it was quiet now.  

Dean was humming a tune and cursing at a cooking pan in equal measures. Humans had been tasked or had tasked themselves with the preparation of communal meals for thousands of years, but it was different to watch the Righteous Man make chicken sandwiches and know that Castiel would soon eat one themselves.

Castiel still remembered all the words of the prophecies of the Righteous Man, how they’d spoken of his decisive command, his relentlessness, and his purity of spirit. He’d recalled them as he first reached Dean in the Pit and beheld the overwhelming beauty of the small shard of soul still untouched by Hell’s filth, had clawed down towards him and clung on far, far too tightly. The words had faded from his mind for a time as he watched Dean lie, and struggle, and fail.

Now he sat and watched those vicious hands buttering bread while Samuel peered in hopefully from the doorway and knew that Heaven had always undervalued the Righteous Man’s impulse to nurture.

This sight was one they could get used to.

*

Dean yawned again. He was getting a cushy six hours a night now and hadn’t hunted himself in two weeks (though they’d helped send Krissy’s crew in the right direction after a simple sounding poltergeist two days ago) and he was still ready for more damn sleep.

Bread was a relatively new thing, but it wasn’t hard. Dean usually stuck to his usual circuit of burgers, eggs, fried sandwiches, meat n potatoes, and stew. Those were kind of his thing, and he was getting pretty good at it now, had lots of different kinds that he could make from memory. He'd finally remembered how to make Bobby's buttered carrots. He'd figured out a meatloaf that was almost like Mom's. Sammy still made grabby hands at the turkey stew no matter how many times he made it.

But they ate a lot of toast and toast could get kinda boring and bread was actually pretty easy one you fucked it up once or twice.

Dean yawned again and thudded the dough back on the counter with his eyes closed. It had risen fine overnight. He just needed to get it in the oven and then he could go get his last hour of sleep while it baked before breakfast. Sam was gonna be researching a ship haunting for some east coast hunters Claire had met up with and he and Cas had more of that other sublevel to sort out today. Was it already today if he wasn’t actually getting up yet?

There was a cold nose tip suddenly between his shoulder blades and he managed not to jump too bad. Cas didn’t apparate around anymore but he still showed up too damn quietly.

“New bread today?”

“Yup.”

“I’ll help.”

But Cas just yawned wide against his back and leaned on him, fiddled with the tie keeping Dean’s bathrobe flopped around his legs and away from the flour. In a few minutes Dean knew he’d end up hauling the sort of angel back to their room with his eyes already closed. Cas had definitely got the sleeping thing all figured out and they’d just put the soft green jersey sheets on the bed yesterday.  

Dean could get used to this.

 

**Author's Note:**

> I do have a tumblr over [here](http://meanderings0ul.tumblr.com) . I don't do anons, but my ask is always open. Con crit is always welcome on my fics. Thanks!


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